Michigan Court of Appeals judges have upheld the conviction of an Isabella County woman who killed her grandchild’s father in Mt. Pleasant in 2015.

Judges Peter D. O’Connell, William Murphy and Kirsten Frank Kelly said in an unpublished opinion released Nov. 21 that pretrial publicity, a lack of moving Mary Lou Bigford’s trial to another county and double jeopardy after two mistrials did not result in an unfair trial.

Bigford, 54, of Gilmore Townhip is serving a life sentence without the possibility of parole in the Huron Valley Complex women’s prison in Washtenaw County after being found guilty of the murder of Lawrence Howard Jr..

An Isabella County jury in May 2016 found Bigford guilty of first-degree murder, carrying a weapon with unlawful intent and a felony firearm violation.

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Bigford claimed that Howard, 39, of Fenton had been sexually abusing her granddaughter and shot him to death in the parking lot of a Mt. Pleasant apartment complex April 18, 2015 after he arrived to pick up the child for visitation.

Howard was in a custody dispute with Bigford’s daughter, who claimed he was sexually assaulting their child, although a forensic interview and medical examination of the child showed no evidence of sexual abuse.

However, a criminal investigation into the accusations was ongoing at the time of Howard’s murder.

Appeals judges noted that because of pre-trial publicity in print, and on television and radio, along with social media discussions, individual questioning of potential jurors was conducted, and two mistrials occurred before Bigford was ultimately convicted.

Appeals judges said in the opinion that the trial judge did not err in keeping the trial in Isabella County after Bigford filed a motion to change the venue.

Prosecutor Risa Hunt-Scully argued that the defense waived the issue when it agreed on a jury while there were still challenges available.

However, the judges said, the prosecutor “confuses the nature of the alleged error with the result of that error.”

“The alleged error is the denial of defendant’s motion to change venue; the alleged result is that an impartial jury was seated,” the judges wrote. “We will not regard defendant’s participation in the jury selection process after the trial court denied an objection as a waiver of the issue.”

However, the judges wrote, while the defense did not use all of Bigford’s peremptory challenges, “she did not in fact express satisfaction with the jury” because of a belief that many potential jurors would lie in order to be chosen.

While appeals judges ruled that Bigford did not waive the issue, they rejected the claim on merits, writing that it is not required that jurors be completely ignorant of the facts of a case, and that the court must honor jurors’ testifying under oath that they can be impartial.

Appeals judges also wrote that at the time the trial court ruled on Bigford’s motion to change venue, “only a small number of potential jurors indicated that they had formed opinions about (Bigford’s) guilt, and a smaller number said they could not set those opinions aside.”

During jury selection in Bigford’s third trial, 13 of 57 potential jurors said they had formed opinions about the case and nine said they could not set aside their opinions, the judges wrote.

Media coverage of the trial was limited to one broadcaster and two photographers, and Bigford didn’t prove that pre-trial publicity tainted her trial, the judges wrote. “While defendant argues that the media coverage in this case was shocking and polarizing, she failed to provide proof of the allegedly shocking and polarizing coverage,” the judges wrote, adding that the case involved issues in which people will likely have visceral responses and a change of venue would not have made the “underlying issues less polarizing.”

Appeals judges also ruled that defense of another does not apply because a threatened attack was not imminent, and said that the double jeopardy rule did not apply in Bigford’s case because Hunt-Scully did not intentionally cause a mistrial.

“The record does not support that the prosecution intentionally provoked a mistrial,” the judges wrote. “When determining whether the prosecutor intentionally provoked a mistrial, courts should consider the objective facts and circumstances of the case because subjective intent is difficult to determine.

“Additionally, where defense counsel made or consented to the motion leading to the mistrial, the defendant has waived his or her double jeopardy claim unless the motion for mistrial was prompted by intentional prosecutorial misconduct,” the judges ruled.